


so i sing a song of love

by twilightstargazer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Mild Smut, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 11:49:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20114635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/pseuds/twilightstargazer
Summary: After, when their bellies are full and the dishes have been moved to the sides, they sit with their backs against the wall and just listen to the sound of the wind as they look up at the stars.She’s spent hundreds of nights like these with him before. He taught her how to find almost all the constellations and the stories behind them. Now she draws her strength from them, letting her eyes slip shut as she says, voice no louder than a whisper, “I’m pregnant.”She hears his sharp intake of breath followed by a long and sticky silence.-or, clarke gets pregnant with bellamy's kid. there's just one problem: they're not together.





	so i sing a song of love

**Author's Note:**

> BFF fill for the prompt: bellarke canonverse pregnancy

Clarke wakes up in a too-hot bed with sweat beading on her brow, behind the creases of her knees, under the heavy curves of her breasts. It’s summer time, which means that it’s not completely unheard of to wake up hot and sweaty, but Clarke feels like she’s being boiled alive under the light cotton of her sheets.

When she finally musters the strength to crack open an eye she’s greeted with the sight of dark freckled skin, hard and scarred and radiating enough heat to cook her, and she remembers.

Bellamy came over last night.

Bellamy  _ spent the night _ last night.

At this point, it’s not anything new. They do this from time to time. Last night Monty presented them with his mulled wine that’s not quite as potent as his moonshine but still strong enough to pack a punch and that’s all the excuse they needed to stumble into bed together. She flits through the memories slowly, from the flurry of limbs and hastily ripped off clothes to the feel of his hair between her fingers as he sucked a bruise into the milky skin of her thigh, a self-satisfied smirk tugging at her lips as she stretches her worn muscles.

The movement causes Bellamy to shift, a soft snore followed by the sudden slight furrow of his eyebrows before he wakes up.

“Morning,” he says, voice still gruff with sleep. He gives a full bodied stretch and she can feel the muscles of his back tense and relax before he rolls over.

She hums against his shoulder. “Morning.”

“Slept well?” he asks, a hint of a smirk tugging at his lips. She prods the space between his ribs with bony fingers and it’s wiped right off.

“Just fine. You?”

“I always sleep better in your bed,” he says shamelessly and she wants to poke him again.

Instead she settles for just saying, “You would sleep better in a pile of hay than that monstrosity you call a bed back at your place.”

“You know, just a few years ago you would have been happy to have a bed like that. You’ve turned into a lush.”

“Yeah, it’s a real princess and the pea situation,” she snorts. “Your mattress is  _ lumpy _ .”

“It has  _ character _ .”

She rolls her eyes and swats his stomach and he retaliates by grabbing her wrist and pulling her on top of him, viciously tickling her sides until they’re both out of breath.

It’s easy for her to lean down and kiss him after they catch their breaths. Just a few months ago she would have balked at the idea of doing anything like that outside of having sex but now they’re both content enough to lie in bed and trade languid kisses back and forth without the intention of going further.

“What time do you have to be at the clinic today?” he asks after, when she’s halfway on top of him.

Clarke makes a face. “Probably soon. We’re a bit short-staffed since Tyler and Mai are training your new recruits in basic first aid.”

“You should get up then.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them move. Part of her wants to slip his cock inside and have slow, sleepy morning sex, while the other part is content with just staying here, letting Bellamy play with her hair as they listen to the sounds of the village coming to life.

They do have to get up eventually, especially when her stomach starts to growl, a reminder that neither of them have eaten in almost twelve hours. He laughs at her and she  _ accidentally  _ knees him in the stomach while pulling on her pants.

They share a pot of bitter tea and Bellamy fries up some tomatoes from her garden with some greens while Clarke fetches some eggs from the henhouse. They eat on the handmade kitchen table and he kisses her goodbye before he leaves.

* * *

Their relationship wasn’t always like  _ that _ , at least not in the beginning.

Well, maybe a little.

The first time they fucked-- because that’s exactly what it was, fast and dirty fucking with no emotions or anything else attached-- was on Unity Day, back when they were still at the Dropship. Clarke had enough to drink that she could openly admit that Bellamy maybe was a little bit attractive, and Bellamy didn’t exactly mean  _ this _ when he told her to have some fun but hey, he went along for the ride nonetheless. It didn’t change anything. They were still co-leaders, still in charge of several dozen teenagers, trying to keep them all alive, and the sex hadn’t done anything to change their dynamic.

They fucked only a handful of times after that-- when she escaped from Mount Weather, when they were trying to figure out how to survive a new apocalypse, when he finally came back to her from space.

Each time was rushed and hurried, clothes still half on, hands over mouths to hide the whimpers and groans, hips furiously grinding against one another. There was no foreplay, no murmured platitudes, just quick fucking, plain and simple.

And then came the peace.

It was such an abstract concept back then, something that they were all fighting for, but when it finally came, no one knew what to do with it.

So they left.

Little by little, groups were breaking off from the main one to find their own way, establish their own villages. Clarke was far from the first to leave, but her group was one of the largest yet, a mix of arkers and grounders and Eligius prisoners alike.

They set up their new home in a valley about a week’s worth of travel from Arkadia, just a three hour trek to the rocky shore that borders the ocean.

Within the year their tents turned into huts and those huts turned into actual houses. Clarke has one on the very edge of the land, a one bedroom thing with an office and a kitchen and a fully functioning hearth that she shares with Bellamy. She has a porch in the back as well as all of her plants, various herbs and fruit trees that bear at different times of the year. Right now her lemon tree is providing her with fruit.

Bellamy really lives ten paces from her house in an actual shoebox, a single room hut that’s not more than ten feet wide with a lumpy bed and trunks of books and other knick- knacks he’s collected over the years. He’s the only one who still lives in one of those early huts. Clarke was going to use it as a gardening shed but he claimed it first, and then built her a garden shed that was bigger than his house.

She told him that he could build his own house, a proper one, or even live with her, but he shot down all of her proposals saying that he’d build one when he’s finished with hers. And he’s always working on something for hers, whether it’s patching the roof or adding on an extension for a bathroom. Even so, he still spends most of his time in her house, just sleeping in his most nights.

Their relationship changed during peacetime. All they’ve ever known was war and fighting and the reprieve from that changed things.

Now it wasn’t clandestine meetings in the dead of night that only lasted twenty minutes. Now they take their time to actually get undressed and fall into bed instead of hurriedly pushing the other up against a wall and fucking with their shirts still on.

They’re not together though.

Bellamy is still just her co-leader and best friend and…  _ Bellamy _ . She can’t risk what she has with him. He’s the only person she trusts enough to be wholly open like that with, the only person she feels comfortable with in those respects. Sex is just another add on to it.

Not that-- Clarke doesn’t think-- they couldn’t-- it just would never really work out between them like that.

(Still, there’s no harm in  _ thinking  _ about it, even though it’s such an outlandish theory and yeah, okay, maybe Clarke likes to daydream a bit too much.)

* * *

Clarke has a love-hate relationship with the summertime.

She loves it because food is in abundance. There’s plenty of game to hunt and all of their plants and trees are flowering, producing a surplus of fruits that they’ve taken to jamming and preserving. She loves soaking up the sunshine and making the trek to the rocky beach with friends and bathing in the sea.

She can’t stand the heat though, and the recklessness that accompanies it. People get stupid in the summer and she’s left to patch up broken bones and stitch close wounds. The stifling heat is something she isn’t quite fond of either and it seems like this summer in particular has it out for her.

Clarke is exhausted, lethargic and completely drained by midday. Her body is achy and she finds herself always thirsty and always nauseous. The combined effects of the heat and humidity aren’t doing her any good.

Still, she doesn’t really think about it until Harper brings in Jordan for his three month check up.

The baby is fussy, crying whenever Clarke has to take him from his mother, and Harper looks exhausted, but she still manages to grin and coo at her baby while tickling his sides.

“I thought growing a whole new human was exhausting,” she says while Clarke scribbles everything down into their file, “Turns out raising a newborn is even worse.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like, okay, when I was pregnant I was just tired all the fu-- damn time. For the first three months it was like I had the flu or something, but at least I could sleep,” she says, “But now with this little one I’m lucky if I get three hours in bed. He’s always waking us up for feeding or a change, don’t you little man?” She laughs and leans over to pinch his nose.

Clarke has stopped writing watching them with a strange expression as Harper’s words repeat in her mind.

_ Like I had the flu or something _ .

Not to brag but Clarke’s pretty proud of her immune system. She only gets sick once a year if so much and it almost always happens after the flu has swept through the rest of the village. She’s only down for three days, the fever burning through her, and by the fourth she’s almost fine and ready to head back to work.

It’s the middle of summer and Clarke is feeling sick, stuck with a headache that just won’t leave along with nausea and body aches. 

Not to mention the exhaustion. She’s in bed just as the stars start to come out most nights and has to be woken up by Bellamy most mornings so she won’t be late to work.

She manages to stumble through the rest of the check up without drawing any suspicion from Harper and takes an early lunch break, hiding in the makeshift office at the back of the clinic.

Clarke slumps forward on the desk, holding her head in her hands as her mind whirls a mile a minute.

At first she just chalked up her symptoms to being that of mild heatstroke. It’s hot as hell, and she knows she doesn’t drink enough water because Bellamy nags her about it. Fatigue, body aches and nausea all fall in that category.

They also fall in other categories too, but.

She can’t possibly be  _ pregnant _ , can she?

Her cycle has never been regular on the ground, too much stress and not enough food made sure of that. The last time she got her period was at the end of May because she remembers Bellamy electing to stay in with her instead of attending celebrations to mark the start of summer.

They’re in August.

They’ve definitely had sex a few times since then and even though she drinks tea, she knows it’s not 100% effective.

Fuck.

She could be at least two months along already.

She rises sharply from her seat, rifling through the cabinets until she finally finds the metal cylinder she was looking for. The test strips were limited since they still haven’t quite figured out as yet how to make them so there’s only about two dozen strips in the jar.

For a moment Clarke holds the jar in her hand, staring at the strips.

She can feel her heart thumping in her throat.

It could just be in her head right?

She could totally just be imagining things.

She doesn’t even have sex that often. And she always drinks the tea. She’s definitely overthinking things because she just saw Harper and her baby that’s all. She’s tired because of all the heat and nauseous because she probably ate some bad fruit.

* * *

Two weeks later she finds herself scrambling for a dustbin, hurling her guts out after smelling fresh blood.

After she’s shakily cleaned up, her eyes land again on the cabinet where the strips are and this time she pulls one out. Her stomach is in knots as she awkwardly pees in the cup and dips the dipstick in it. She sits it on the counter and sinks to her knees, counting to five hundred before she can even make herself look at it.

Two cheery blue lines look back at her and Clarke feels like she’s going to faint.

* * *

Clarke can pinpoint only a few times where she felt helpless.

The first was when she watched her father get floated. The second time was when they landed on earth without a lick of supplies. When Jasper got speared. That first night in Mount Weather. Watching her friends leave.

And now she can add this moment to the list.

She takes the rest of the day off from medical and makes the trek back home, lost in her own head. It’s only just before lunch which means there’s still a few more hours until Bellamy gets back from hunting.

Fuck.  _ Bellamy. _

She has to tell Bellamy.

Suddenly she’s filled with an anxious energy that she can’t shake. She cleans the cabin from top to bottom and does their laundry in a barrel out back. She cleans up their little garden and picks the fruit, sharing the excess with their friends all while mulling over the same two things in her mind:  _ I’m pregnant  _ and  _ how do I tell Bellamy? _

God, she’s  _ pregnant  _ and she’s not even dating the father of her child. Hysterical laughter bubbles within her and she laughs until she cries, loud, messy sobs that wrack her body.

What if Bellamy decides he doesn’t want anything to do with the baby? No, she banishes the thought from her head. Even if Bellamy doesn’t like her like that, he’s still going to be there for their kid.

Still, her mind is whirring a mile a minute, conjuring up more and more scenarios, each one more ridiculous than the last. What if this completely ruins their dynamic? What if he finds someone better and marries them? What if she’s left all alone with a child she only gets to see half the time? What if, what if, what if.

When he finally,  _ finally _ , gets back home, Clarke has already made them both dinner and is working on whipping up some lemon bars just so she could stop worrying about hypotheticals.

“Someone was busy,” he teases as he toes off his boots by the door. He’s made an effort to clean up before coming to see her, his face and forearms bare but she can see flecks of dirt on his neck and a couple smudges of mud on his biceps.

He dips his finger in the batter for the lemon bars and she swats at his hand.

“You’re going to ruin your appetite,” she huffs, shooing him out of the kitchen with her dishtowel.

He snorts. “Not fucking likely. I could probably eat the boar we took down all by myself.”

“Good hunt?” she asks while ladling out the stew into bowls. She breaks off a few chunks of the dense poppy seed bread the kitchens made this week and puts it warm in a pan on the stove.

“Mmhmm,” he hums as he plucks the pitcher of lemonade from the icebox. “Took down a couple boars and a stag.”

“We should probably start trying to raise them,” she says, thinking about having venison on a regular basis to eat. It makes her mouth water.

“Miller will name them like he did with the goats and then we’ll never get to eat it.”

“Stop threatening to eat Michaelangelo,” she says easily, even as she bites back a smile.

“That’s what they’re  _ there _ for,” he sighs as he takes the bowls from her and pours them both a glass of lemonade.

They keep the conversation light as they eat and Clarke lets him do most of the talking. He tells her about the animals he saw and the cluster of purple flowers that he picked for her but forgot back at his hut, tucked inside his jacket. Clarke is more than happy to just listen, the weight of the news she was about to share sitting heavy on her chest.

Dinner is over soon enough and Bellamy clears the dishes, washing them while she brews a pot of tea to have with the lemon bars. 

They carry them out to the back where he built her a deck because the weather is nice. There’s no furniture out there so they sit cross-legged on an old blanket, picking at the lemon bars with their fingers. It’s not at all sweet, instead it’s tart and tangy in a way that makes her mouth water.

After, when their bellies are full and the dishes have been moved to the sides, they sit with their backs against the wall and just listen to the sound of the wind as they look up at the stars.

She’s spent hundreds of nights like these with him before. He taught her how to find almost all the constellations and the stories behind them. Now she draws her strength from them, letting her eyes slip shut as she says, voice no louder than a whisper, “I’m pregnant.”

She hears his sharp intake of breath followed by a long and sticky silence.

It drags on for so long that she ends up opening her eyes to peer at him through the darkness. He’s looking straight ahead and she can’t quite make out the expression on his face.

“Bellamy?” she asks, “Are you okay?”

“I- yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, voice sounding choked off and not fine. “Just. Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I did the test myself and,” she waves her hand weakly, “Pregnant.”

“ _ Fuck. _ ”

“Fuck?”

“No-- well yeah-- but no, just,” he runs a hand through his hair, causing it to stick up at odd angles. “Fuck Clarke. Pregnancy is no joke.”

“I know that,” she says, a little bit snippy with him. “I’m not joking.”

He swears again. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It sounded that way.”

“I meant that pregnancy is dangerous.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” he asks her, blunt as ever, and Clarke blinks.

She’s always had her own issues with having children-- how could she bring one into a world that’s so dangerous, what would a child think of a mother who has so much blood on her hands-- but she never thought that  _ Bellamy _ would.

Bellamy who read stories to all the village children at the bonfire on Fridays.

Bellamy who’s always happy to help chaperone field trips into the woods.

Bellamy who gives piggyback rides and lets all the kids attack him like he’s some sort of Godzilla-esque creature when they go to the lake.

Clarke has always seen Bellamy as a dad type, but there’s something in his tone of voice that makes her blood go cold.

“Do you think I shouldn’t?” she asks, trying to keep her voice impassive.

“I’m saying that you should weigh your options carefully,” he says, “You can’t return a child.”

“Right,” she says, stumbling to her feet. “Okay. I think it’s time for me to go to bed now.”

“Clarke,” he sighs following after her. He grabs her hand, forcing her to turn around. “Look, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You didn’t mean a lot of things like that tonight, huh.”

“If you’d just let me explain,” he says and fine, okay, she nods, wishing she could cross her arms but his hand is still holding onto hers. “You know that having a kid on the ground is a big deal. Lot’s of things can go wrong. And I need you-- I  _ need  _ you-- to make sure that you’re ready for this. That you’re one hundred and ten percent sure that you want this baby.”

She can feel her temper flickering at the surface, just barely restrained. “I know what I want but the question is, do you?”

His eyes flash, going flinty. “If you’re asking whether or not I’ll be there for  _ my kid _ , the answer is yes, Princess,” he growls at her and she flinches. It’s been years since he’s called her that and now it only slips out on occasion, when he’s really pissed at her, and that’s how she knows that she’s struck a nerve.

Clarke is far too incensed to care though and instead she yanks her hand out of his. “Good.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Super,” she snarls, before turning on her heel and strutting off to her bedroom. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She doesn’t quite slam her bedroom door but comes mighty close to it and she listens to his heavy footsteps as he makes his way out of her cabin and back to his stupid little hut. If she looks out her bedroom window she can see it, can even hear him moving things around sometimes, but Clarke is in a bad mood so she pulls the shutters closed despite the heat of the summer night.

Things are strained between them over the next couple of days.

Clarke is… Clarke doesn’t know how to feel.

She’s angry and upset and  _ hurt _ that Bellamy apparently doesn’t want this baby with her. The time that’s not spent stopping from throwing up is now spent stopping herself from crying. She blames the pregnancy hormones.

A part of her can’t help but wonder if it’s not the baby that he doesn’t want but  _ her _ .

He’s content to fuck her every which way in her cabin, but they’re not together and never once has he hinted that he wanted to change that. Logically she knows that she could have changed things too, but never once has Bellamy looked at her like he wanted something more than friendship so she left it at that. Clarke was just happy to have him, in whatever ways she could.

Maybe Bellamy does want a kid, but he wants it with someone else. Someone who he can love and see himself grow old with, raising an army of children and a dog. Someone who’s not her.

Clarke feels ill and she knows that this time it’s not the morning sickness.

The awkwardness lasts for the rest of the week until Bellamy caves on Thursday, showing up at the cabin with some purple flowers and a basket of strawberries to grovel for forgiveness.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her after she came home to find him sitting on the couch. She stared at him for a full minute before he stood up and offered her a strawberry. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t want this baby.”

“I’m sorry too,” she says, holding the door open a bit wider so he can step inside. “I overreacted.”

He smiles at her, a small tentative one that’s barely a quirk of his lips and that’s all the encouragement she needs before she flings herself against him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He stumbles back with a soft ‘oof’ but his arms come to wrap around her too, clinging to her just as fiercely.

“I was going to ask Harper to take a look for me tomorrow,” she says a bit later after they’ve eaten all the strawberries, when she’s lying on the couch, sketching, while he reads. She has her feet in his lap and he’s squeezing her ankles. It’s nice. “At lunch time if you’d like to come. It’s just to uh, make sure everything is fine.”

Bellamy blinks. “Uh, yeah. Sure. That would be good.”

“Great. Meet me in medical at lunch.”

Their little village has a fairly decent medical centre and she’s proud of it. Clarke is the main doctor, but she’s trained a handful of others like Harper who are almost up to par with her. There are also one or two grounder healers who extend their services, and all in all, they have a good system. They still have to scavenge their equipment though and when they stumbled upon an old hospital about a year and a half ago, Clarke damn near cried.

Most of the equipment was unusable in its original state, but Raven and Monty were able strip them down for parts to fix the others and that’s how they ended up with their ultrasound machine.

It’s hard to make sense of the grey blobs on the screen which is why only Clarke and Harper know how to properly use the machine.

They still haven’t announced the pregnancy to anyone as yet and Clarke doesn’t think that she will until she starts showing. As of right now her stomach is still flat, just a bit firm to the touch.

She tells Harper that she wants to see her at lunchtime in medical. She’s still on leave after having Jordan, but she’s always happy to help out with a couple of things here and there. They haven’t set any limits as to when new parents should head back out to work, but three to six months seems to be the unofficial period.

Bellamy is waiting with her when Harper arrives. He brought her an apple, one of the green ones which are her favourites, and cut it up into blocky slices with his pocket knife.

“Hey Clarke, hey Bellamy,” says Harper, smiling at the two of them as she walks into the office.

“Hey Harper,” she says. Bellamy just nods. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she smiles. “Sorry I’m a bit late, I was nursing.”

In just a few months time that’s going to be Clarke. She feels her smile stick awkwardly to her face as she tries to hide the dread building inside. “That’s fine. How’s Jordan doing?”

They chat a bit about the baby, Bellamy interjecting ever so often to remind her that he’s always good for babysitting if she and Monty ever want a break, until she finally asks, “So what’s up?” looking between the two of them, a bit confused.

Clarke catches Bellamy’s eye.

They’re not particularly clandestine about their relationship, but they don’t go around announcing it either. Even though Harper and Monty are some of their closest friends, Clarke honestly has no idea if they know that she and Bellamy hook up or not. No one has ever brought is up, at least not in front of them. No jokes or passing comments or  _ anything _ .

Clarke takes a deep breath to steady herself.

“I’m pregnant,” she says firmly, like ripping off a band-aid.

The thing that she likes most about Harper is that she doesn’t pry, doesn’t stick her nose where it doesn’t belong. Other than the slight widening of her eyes, she remains fairly impassive and Clarke is grateful for it. 

“Congratulations,” she says and they both nod their thanks.

“I was hoping you could take a look for me,” she says, “Just to make sure everything looks good.”

“Yeah,” she nods, “Of course.”

They make their way to the room where the ultrasound machine is housed and Harper has her push her leggings down a bit and roll up her t-shirt. The gel is cold on her skin and she flinches at the first contact she has with it. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Bellamy snicker, and she tries to shoot him a dirty look.

Clarke has done this procedure a thousand times so it’s easy to tune out Harper until she finally turns on the screen and--  _ oh. _

That’s her baby.

It’s nothing more than a greyish white blob centred on the screen, not doing much, but that’s the flicker of its heartbeat and Clarke is only a little bit embarrassed when she starts to cry. Blindly she searches for Bellamy’s hand, not wanting to take her eyes off the screen, and he grabs hold of it, holding on tightly. He’s a bit teary-eyed too watching their kid on the monitor.

“Baby is looking good,” says Harper warmly, beaming at the two of them. “How far along do you think you are?”

“I honestly don’t know,” says Clarke. “No more than twelve weeks I think.”

They debate a bit, going back and forth, trying to judge based on the size of the fetus and when Clarke had her last period and come up with ten weeks.

She’s already a quarter way through her pregnancy.

They look at it from a few more angles before Clarke asks Harper to come back in about two weeks to do it all again and if she could  _ please  _ keep the news to herself. The other girl rolls her eyes goodnaturedly at having been asked, but promises Clarke that she won’t tell a soul, not even Monty.

Bellamy walks her back home, their hands still tangled together and insists on making her lunch, pan-seared venison and greens from their garden, her favourite. Afterwards he does the dishes and then kisses her forehead before heading back to work.

* * *

Things with Bellamy are different now.

Before they used to be able to joke around and talk about anything and he wouldn’t even think twice about being rough with her during sex, whether it was setting her on all fours and pulling her head back or pounding into her so hard that the entire bedframe shook.

Now it feels like there’s this wall between them.

They still talk, but it’s always about leader stuff, like who should be in charge of the next hunting party, when are they sending out another scavenging group, should we really try and install proper plumbing? And on the off chance that they’re not talking about all of those things, it’s always about her pregnancy and how she’s feeling, if she’s eating enough and drinking enough water and getting enough sleep. It’s driving her insane.

Not to mention that he hasn’t fucked her since they found out.

Clarke’s still in the first trimester, all achy and nauseous, so it’s not like she’s begging for it, but Bellamy is being uncharacteristically gentlemanly about the whole thing. He stayed the night the other day and slept on the couch instead of in her bed. She shucked off her shirt in front of him, and he turned his head away instead of staring at her chest and smirking like he usually does.

It makes her want to cry all the time.

The worst thing about it all is the morning sickness.

Clarke wouldn’t say she’s having a bad pregnancy; it seems pretty average and she only throws up a few times, mostly due to the smell of blood which is kind of a pain since she works in a clinic. But whenever she throws up around Bellamy he clenches his jaw and gets all moody about it and it makes her want to  _ slap _ him.

She’s the one growing an actual human here and yet he’s the one walking around acting all pissy.

Raven tells her that it’s all in her head, that Bellamy is acting normal, just as he’s always been, and it pisses her off even more because it’s not like they would know. Half of them didn’t even know they were sleeping together until Clarke announced her pregnancy at the twelve week mark. How would they know what’s different in their relationship?

Eventually she ends up snapping when the summer heat turns the air muggy. September always brings rain showers, a great reprieve for enduring all those months of heat, but first, it brings about the worst days, the ones where the humidity is so high that Clarke feels like she’s swimming through the air.

“I got you a present,” Bellamy says as he kicks off his shoes. He isn’t wearing a shirt, like most men in the village, because it’s too bloody hot. Clarke wishes she could get away with not wearing a shirt, but her breasts are too heavy, too achy and sensitive, and she doesn’t think she could handle it.

She looks up from where she’s sketching and sees him holding something brown and wrinkly in his hands. “What’s that?”

“It’s a new water skin,” he says. “You haven’t been drinking enough water lately so I got you this. You can just fill it and take it to the clinic with you.”

“Great,” she deadpans before going back to sketching.

“You could say thanks.”

“You could stop treating me like an invalid,” she counters, snapping suddenly.

“I’m not treating you as an invalid. You’re the mother of my child. I got you pregnant so it’s my job to make sure you remain healthy,” he says.

“I can take care of myself,” she says, sitting up straight. “I don’t need you to keep hovering all the time.”

“I’m just checking up on you,” he says through gritted teeth, fists clenched at his sides. The water skin that he got her is trapped within one of them. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“No. What you’re doing is breathing down my damn back because you don’t trust me to look after myself.”

“Can you blame me?”

“I’m not going to fucking die, Bellamy,” she snaps, “I’m  _ pregnant _ not riddled with some incurable disease.”

“As far as I’m concerned it’s the same thing!”

“Right,” she says shakily, rising to her feet. “Get out.”

“Clarke--”

“Get out before I do something like punch you in your stupid perfect face.”

“You like my stupid perfect face,” he says gently, all the fight suddenly swooped out of him. He scrubs a weary hand down his face. “I’m just worried okay.”

She sighs. “I get it,” she nods, “I really do, but lately you’ve been treating me less like Clarke, your friend, and more like Clarke, some girl you’ve infected with your sperm.”

He pulls a face. “Please don’t say that, it sounds weird.”

“Well guess what,” she continues, completely ignoring him, “I’m Clarke, your  _ friend _ who’s infected by your sperm. I’m still me, just pregnant, so will you please, for the sake of my sanity and the wellbeing of everyone else in this village, ease up a bit?”

He exhales loudly. “Fine. But only if you stop saying I infected you with my sperm.”

“Deal.”

The next morning Bellamy makes them breakfast and doesn’t comment once on her caloric intake. He doesn’t fret over her bending over to tie her shoelaces or berate her for her caffeine consumption when she downs her cup of tea. He does remind her to take the freshly filled water skin with her to work and Clarke lets him have this one.

The rest of the day continues just like that. He brings them lunch which they eat in her office and they talk about guard rotations and gossip about the newest breakups and get togethers that occurred, including the messiest ones which has him changing the rotation in the first place.

Later when he comes to her cabin and finds her halfway dressed after her bath, he doesn’t turn away, just leans against the doorframe and watches as she tugs on her leggings and t-shirt with dark eyes, staring at her just barely visible bump until her skin is hot and pink with pleasure. She kisses him after too, a hot searing kiss that has his hands tangled in her hair as she opens her mouth for his tongue.

She’s already a little turned on from him watching her as she dressed so when he drops a hand to rub at her over the front of her leggings, she moans loudly into his mouth. It’s been a while since she’s gotten off, and she’s ready and eager for it, opening her legs wider so he can get at her clit even through the layers of clothing.

His fingers are flirting with the lip of her leggings when her stomach growls obnoxiously loud and they break apart to laugh.

Bellamy may have been trying to ease up, but even that’s too much for him, so he stops them right there, even though she’s wet and wanting and can clearly see the bulge in his pants too. He makes them dinner-- some strips of boar with tomatoes and wild rice-- and Clarke fully intends on picking things back up after dinner, but she’s still suffering from some of that first trimester fatigue and falls asleep on the couch as he massages her achy feet.

* * *

When Clarke is halfway along with her pregnancy she decides that she wants to go to the beach.

It’s October, which means that it’s going to start getting cold real soon, so she badgers Bellamy about it for two weeks until he finally agrees.

When they first moved to the valley they built a few huts by the sea. At first it was just one to store the handful of boats they made by carefully hollowing out tree trunks, but then those trips sometimes lasted a few days and they realised that it would just be more feasible to throw up a couple of shacks for shelter. There were maybe half a dozen of them littered on the mile-long stretch of beach.

She remembers that beach houses were a thing back on earth before the bombs. A quiet secluded getaway for those who had access. Theirs are a bit more utilitarian in nature, a small hut no bigger than ten paces wide with no furniture to speak of. Instead it houses a hodgepodge of things, an old jacket, a glove missing its other half, blankets worn so thin that they no longer serve any purpose.

Clarke has always loved the ocean. It was one of her favourite things about living here, that the ocean was right there, just a few hours away if they walk.

They take the rover because Bellamy is a paranoid son of a bitch and he’s terrified about having her hike through miles of forest and over the hills, so he steals the rover for the day and Clarke packs their bags with a change of clothes and two sets of rations just in case.

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” he grumbles, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she carefully navigates them through the rough terrain. Normally he would speed through it, jostling everyone and everything inside, but now that she’s pregnant he’s being careful. It’s cute. Kind of.

“You have to agree,” she hums, pushing the old pair of aviator sunglasses up the bridge of her nose when they slide down. They found it on a scavenging trip and it’s much too big for her, but she loves them. “I’m the mother of your child. You’re not allowed to tell me no.”

“You’re a goddamn heathen,” he announces, taking his eyes off the road to glance first at her, then at her belly, for a second.

At four and a half months pregnant Clarke is finally showing just enough that it’s visible through her t-shirts. Which is why she’s taken to wearing  _ Bellamy’s _ t-shirts instead. It’s a little bit of a problem for him, because the sight of Clarke in his clothes leaves his mouth dry. But she’s comfortable in it and no one can really see her bump in the loose fabric, so she calls it a win.

It’s a pretty nice day in October. The wind is a bit nippy and there are a couple of clouds floating about but at least the sun is out.

They get to the beach at around noon after having a late start and then because Bellamy insisted on doing twenty miles an hour at the very most. Clarke didn’t plan on spending the night but now that she’s here, she doesn’t think she’s going to want to leave until morning. Suddenly she’s glad she packed their bedrolls.

“Stop,” he says when they finally pull up to the beach. She’s been vibrating with excitement since she got the first glimpse of the ocean ten minutes ago and she’s just about ready to go bounding in. “We have to eat lunch first.”

He packed them sandwiches using the hard-crusted bread the kitchens made and some tender slices of venison that Clarke has no idea where he got. Most of their meat has been preserved and stored for the winter.

The bread is hard enough that Clarke has to take her time chewing it and then, as if that wasn’t enough, Bellamy makes her wait thirty minutes before going into the water.

“You’re so mean,” she whines, looking longingly at the waves that crash on the shore. They’re in one of those little shacks and he’s lounging on a nest of his bedroll and some old blankets as he reads an old novel.

“I’m being safe,” he corrects her without looking up. “You can’t just eat and go swimming right after.”

“Well I’m the doctor and I say you can,” she mutters churlishly.

“I will handcuff you to this shack if you even try,” he says and she just sulks even further.

After what feels like an eternity, half an hour is up and Bellamy tells her so she can go. She’s stripping off her clothes and running for the waves before he can even finish.

The water is freezing and she yelps as it bites her bare skin. Clarke has stripped down to just her panties and bra, of which she’s starting to spill out of. Bellamy joins her a bit after, when her teeth finally stop chattering, and she takes great glee in trying to dunk him.

They splash around for a bit and she catches him staring at the exposed curve of her belly more than once, and it sends a shiver down her spine.

Ever since their truce all those months ago things have been fairly normal.

There’s still a slight awkwardness between them as they try to figure out where they stand with the other, but other than that, everything is as it was.

Except he still won’t fuck her.

Clarke always thought it was an exaggeration, the rumours about the second trimester being the one where your bed bound the most, but once she hit it, she realised that it was nothing but the truth. Her morning sickness disappeared and her body stopped hurting as much and all that was left was what felt like a constant slick in her underwear the moment Bellamy so much as  _ looked _ at her.

And he knew it too.

He loved riling her up, loved teasing her and then getting her off everywhere, especially in the most public of places, like the clinic, and the guard barracks, and the gardens.

He’d eat her out until his jaw ached or finger her until his hand started to cramp, but he refused to fuck her despite how much she begged, refused to be rough with her.

Clarke lies back in the water, floating, just as the wind picks up, sending a wave of goosebumps across her body and causing her nipples to peak. She has her eyes closed and feels rather than see when Bellamy wades over, the water lapping at her sides.

“How about we come out for a bit,” he murmurs, ghosting a hand down the length of her body. “It looks like it might rain.”

She cracks open an eye and observes him. He has that look on his face, that dark, predatory one where he looks at her like he’s ready to eat her alive, and she shivers again.

“Alright,” she says, standing back up, close enough that she can feel the warmth radiating from his body. “Okay.”

He flashes a boyish grin at her and then, before she can even think about moving, grabs her up in his arms and carries her back to the little shack, all whilst she scream-laughs.

Bellamy deposits her on the nest he made earlier and slots himself between her legs as he leans down to kiss her. It’s the hot kind of kiss, the one that oozes with potential and she gets a hand in his hair and sighs into it, perfectly fine with following his lead for now.

He kisses across her cheek and jaw, down the column of her neck and sternum, stopping to gently swirl his tongue around one sensitive nipple and then the other. Clarke is already gasping, desperately bucking her hips as she searches for friction.

“Relax,” he tells her as he kisses down her chest and upper part of her stomach, “I got you.”

He kisses her belly button, making her laugh, and then peppers her bump with even more kisses until he finally reaches her hips and her breath stutters.

It’s honestly a tossup between them on who loves Bellamy going down on her more, him or her. Clarke likes to tangle her hands in his hair and pull, likes to watch him go at it, but her stomach is just tall enough to block it and yeah, she can  _ feel _ him down there, licking through her folds and sucking at her clit, but it’s not the  _ same _ . Eventually she pulls him back up and kisses that confused look off his face, leaving him dazed long enough for her to shove him on his back and straddle his chest.

“This okay?” she asks, rocking down on him when she feels his hands grabbing her ass.

“Of course it is,” he says, looking up at her through hooded eyes. He pulls her hips forward. “Get up here.”

She grins toothily, shifting so that her knees are over both of his shoulders and carefully sits down, bucking slightly when he strains his head upward to lightly nip at her labia.

“Meanie,” she breathes, feeling her eyes drift shut as he licks into her. She can’t help but grind down on his face and Bellamy makes a pleased sound, trying to get her to do it again.

She much prefers it this way, when she’s on top and just has to look down to catch a glimpse of his blissed out expression as he licks her cunt. She feels the start of an orgasm just from that.

It doesn’t take much more to get her there, just some more licking and sucking and when his tongue finally curls around her clit, that’s it, she’s gone, bucking wildly against his face and moaning loudly because who’s there to hear her? No one besides Bellamy, that’s for sure.

The thing about being pregnant means that she’s virtually insatiable, so she recovers quick enough, slinking down his body to grasp at his dick.

“Bellamy,” she whines, stroking it lightly, “Can I? Please?”

“Clarke,” he tries, but his voice is shot, the tendons in his neck popping.

“Pretty please?” she asks again, and this time he sighs, throwing an arm across his eyes.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he mumbles before speaking up and saying, “Alright fine. Yes.”

She grins brightly, stroking him a few more times before throwing a leg over his waist. She runs him up and down her slit a few times to get him wet, gasping every time the head of his cock bumps against her clit.

Clarke sighs when she sinks down on him relishing in the stretch. It’s been a while since she had him like this, had him  _ inside her _ , but riding him is just like riding a bike. She giggles a bit at the pun and Bellamy grins crookedly at her, tapping her thigh to get her to go faster.

And she does.

She alternates between bouncing up and down and grinding on him until Bellamy is a shivering, shaking mess, swearing something absolutely  _ filthy _ beneath her and she grins into his neck, flashing her teeth at the muscles there. She knows that he won’t come until she does and decides to take pity on him, dragging his hand to her clit.

It’s a testament to how well they know each other’s bodies that with just only a few flicks and circles, he has her coming, this one longer and stronger than the last.

Clarke thinks she blacks out for a second and when she comes to, Bellamy is groaning out the end of his release, hips stuttering against hers.

He smacks a sleeping kiss to the crown of her head and she nuzzles his neck, limbs loose and draped across him. She fully expects him to roll them over to sleep but instead Bellamy just pulls the blanket over them both.

“Get some sleep, Clarke,” he murmurs, trailing his hand up and down across her back, lulling her to sleep.

When she wakes up, hours later, it’s dark and she’s alone. She pulls on her clothes and wanders outside where she finds Bellamy tending to a fire, frying up some fish. He tells her that he caught them with a spear, sounding immensely proud of the fact and she feels a flare of warmth in her chest, causing her to lean down and peck his cheek.

“I know you packed rations,” he says, slipping the cooked fish onto a wide, flat leaf. “But I figured you’d prefer this.”

She does.

They’re small, but the filets are sweet and she hums happily as she eats, licking her fingers clean and Bellamy laughs at her.

That’s when she feels it, just a tiny little flutter in her stomach, like caged butterflies trying to get out, and her breath catches. Bellamy notices of course, and she can see the worry that quickly pinches at his face.

“It’s the baby,” she whispers, feeling that odd little fluttery feeling again. “I felt it move.”

His eyes are dark and filled with awe as he looks at her. “Yeah?”

She bites her lip, trying not to grin  _ too _ much. “Yeah.”

“Can I?” he asks, his hand hovering over her tummy and she nods, holding her breath.

He can’t feel anything of course, it’s still way too early, but he still tries, keeping a hand on her stomach and cooing ‘come on baby, kick for daddy,’ and Clarke starts to cry because she’s just so damn  _ happy _ .

It’s not some sort of startling realisation but a simple, strayaway thought.

She loves him.

It’s a feeling that’s both completely foreign to her and yet familiar since she’s loved him like this for so long. Just another intrinsic part of who she is.

She loves him and wants him, wants  _ this _ , nothing but peace and their little family, happy and healthy together.

They fall asleep, with Bellamy’s face level with her stomach, his hands on her bump, and her hand petting through his thick curls. It’s the happiest she’s been in a long time and she wishes she could just bottle this moment up forever.

* * *

The first snow comes in December and Clarke’s stomach balloons with it.

It feels like one day she’s normal, carrying out her business with her little bump and then the next she’s waddling about looking as though she has a watermelon stuffed under her shirt.

“I’m a whale,” she bemoans one night, looking at her figure in the old mirror she has in her room. She’s officially at the point where none of her clothes can fit her so she has to wear these dresses that make her look like a tent. She misses pants. She misses her bras. She misses wearing shoes that don’t hurt her feet.

Bellamy hip checks her out of the way gently, pulling his skin taut as he shaves the stubble from his cheeks.

“You’re pregnant.”

“I’m the size of a house.”

“You are with child.”

“I miss seeing my legs.”

“I can see them enough for the both of us.”

“You’re impossible,” she huffs, even as she hides a smile.

He all but moved in with her once the place started getting colder. Usually Clarke would protest about him treating him like an invalid but he’s been surprisingly compliant, keeping the hearth going at night, darning her socks, bringing her the best bits of stew. He even goes through all of the trouble to drag the heavy soaking tub from the back yard into the house, setting it up in the corner near the hearth so it’s easy to throw in the hot stones to warm the water.

It’s nice having him here.

It’s nice to fall asleep with him curled up behind her and wake up to him snoring in her hair. To wake up to breakfast and have someone to rub out the knots in her back and bring her tea when she has heartburn.

A part of her wishes that things can stay like this forever, but she knows once the baby comes that’s it. They’ll go back to the way things used to be.

The thought of it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. It’s been like this since she had the epiphany about her feelings. A mix of elation and sadness and frustration that creates a dangerous cocktail of emotion that makes her want to run for the hills and throw up in the dirt at the same time.

“And you’re supposed to be taking it easy,” he counters, towelling off his face.

“We agreed that both of us will continue to work until the baby comes,” she maintains, feeling a slight flicker of annoyance. “And nothing has changed that plan.”

It’s been a constant topic of discussion ever since she started waddling about the place, the one thing he won’t give her any leeway on. Bellamy has somehow gotten it in his head that Clarke being on her feet all the time isn’t good for the baby and Clarke is pissed because of course, that’s what he’s worried about.

The thing is, she knows that he Bellamy loves her.

Bellamy loves her the same way he loves Monty and Harper and Raven, even his sister, who only sees twice a year nowadays. And she’s fine with that really she is, but.

If there’s one thing this pregnancy has taught her it’s that Bellamy will probably never love her the way she loves him.

He cares about her and wants her to be safe, but Clarke knows that that’s only because she’s carrying his child. And it’s fine. She’s learning to be fine with it.

Bellamy sighs behind her. “I know, but no one is going to say anything if you take some time off.”

Clarke places her hairbrush on the dressing table a bit harder than she intended, the loud crack ringing through the air. “I don’t need to take some time off,” she says, “I’m fine and I’m healthy, you don’t need to worry.”

“It’s not just your life I’m worried about Clarke,” he snaps. “That’s my kid too.”

“Trust me Bellamy, you’ve made that abundantly clear,” she says bitterly.

“What the hell does that mean.”

“Nothing. I have to get to work,” she says, struggling to reach over and do up the laces on her boot. He pads over, kneeling in front of her and bats her hands away, doing the laces up himself. Her eyes start to burn and she wrenches them shut, refusing to cry.

“Clarke,” he says softly, his fingers ghosting over her cheek. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You can tell me.”

“It’s stupid.”

“More stupid than the time you cried because Miller ate the last bit of the apple pie Harper made?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow and she manages to get out a watery laugh.

It was in October, right when those second trimester hormones were really starting to kick in, and Harper tried to make a pie from the apples they harvested. The crust was kind of lumpy since they had to use oil instead of butter, but the filling was delicious, crunchy apples and cinnamon and honey and Clarke ate half of it all by herself. When Miller had the last piece she refused to talk to him for a full week.

He nudges her again, softly. “Come on. Talk to me.”

She sighs.

“It’s just that, sometimes you act like you only care about this kid y’know? Like you’re the only person in the world who cares about it.”

“Clarke--”

“I can go to work,” she says firmly. “I can help Monty collect herbs. I can do the laundry around here. I care about this baby too, Bellamy, I’m not going to do anything that hurts it.”

“I didn’t mean for you to feel like that,” he says, resting his head on the swell of her stomach. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“You’re important to me, Clarke,” he says, looking up at her. He rests his hand on her stomach, giving it a light squeeze. “You’re both important to me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

She bites her lip. He smiles at her.

“So we good?” he asks, standing up again. His knees creak and she laughs a little.

“Yeah. We’re fine.”

January brings with it several feet of snow that they constantly have to shovel off to the sides. Clarke makes a passing comment that this winter isn’t as cold as they usually are and Bellamy snorts, informing her that she’s turned into a literal furnace. He’s probably not wrong. She’s read that a woman’s core temperature increases when she’s pregnant. It gives her a thrill though, when she realises that Bellamy is leeching off of her for heat instead of the other way around.

Her friends throw her a baby shower, giving her little trinkets and toys and clothes that are so soft and tiny that her breath catches when she imagines their little boy or girl in them in just a month or so.

The baby shower is the cue to start turning her office into a nursery and Bellamy doesn’t let her do anything but sit and watch as he and few others rearrange the furniture to make room for the crib and the small set of drawers that he made to hold all the toys and clothes.

He also makes her a rocking chair, hand-carved with the sun on one side and the moon on the other. He unveils it to her a few days after the baby shower, explains, almost shyly, that it’s late because he was sanding it down and varnishing it still so she won’t have to worry about splinters. In all honesty, Clarke only hears half of his little spiel before she throws herself at him, crying into his neck.

“So I take this to mean that you like it?” he asks, soft, running a hand up and down her back to comfort her.

She nods, sniffling loudly. God, she probably got tears and snot all over his shirt, but Bellamy doesn’t seem to care. He just holds her tighter.

“I love it.”  _ I love you. _

On the coldest day of winter so far, Clarke wakes up to find blood in her bed.

Bellamy isn’t here. He went with a few others on a hunting trip for the weekend because there’s only so much jerky and cured meat you can eat before you start to get fed up.

She tries to calm herself-- it’s fine, it’s just a little bit of blood, she’s almost eight months along, her stomach isn’t cramping, it’s fine, she’s fine, the baby is going to be fine-- as she gets dressed and waddles towards medical.

Tyler is on shift and his eyes widen when he sees her appear.

“Get Harper,” she says and the younger boy is on his feet before she could finish.

After that everything is a flurry of activity. She’s ushered into their makeshift maternity room and does a physical exam as well as an ultrasound. Clarke barely takes on what everyone is saying, trying to focus on breathing and staying calm, but someone must have radioed Bellamy, because he’s there, about an hour later after they’ve finished clearing everything up, covered in sweat and grime, looking as though he ran the entire length of the forest to get back to her.

“Clarke!” he says, bursting into the room, and that’s when she starts to cry, reaching for his hand. “What happened? Are you alright? Is the baby--”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” she says, whimpering a little as she swipes at the tears. “It’s just a minor complication.”

“What happened?” he asks again, slumping onto the stool next to the bed.

She bites her lip for a moment. “There was a partial placental abruption,” she says watching him carefully. “Part of the placenta-- the thing that provides the baby with food and oxygen from me-- detached from the wall of my uterus.”

He sucks in a deep breath and screws his eyes shut. In that moment he looks older than she’s ever seen him, and she squeezes his hand.

“ _ Shit _ .”

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” she says again, “I’m on bed rest until I give birth.”

“Good,” he says, “I was worried.”

“I know. Me too.”

He kisses their joined hands and Clarke is finally able to properly relax, drifting to sleep.

The next few days are difficult.

True to her word, Clarke remains on bed rest, only getting up to use the bathroom or fetch some water to drink. Bellamy is tetchy though, snapping at everyone, and she sees it in the way he moves too. His shoulders are drawn tense and he’s slamming cupboard doors and splitting so many logs that they have enough firewood for several winters to come.

Eventually, after a week of dealing with his sour mood, she cracks.

“What is your problem?” she asks when he slams the knife down on the counter so hard that it bounces off. It almost lands on his foot, only missing it because he jumps out of the way.

“Nothing,” he says, swearing as he bends down to reclaim the knife. “I’m fine.”

“Really. Is that why you’re trying to break apart my house.”

“I’m not trying to break apart your house,” he says. “And even if I did, I built it. I can just as easily fix it back.”

“You’re being a brat.”

He laughs almost a bit hysterically and yeah okay, now Clarke is worried. “I’m a brat?” he asks, incredulous. “You had one simple thing to do and couldn’t even manage that.”

“Me?” she sputters, “What did I do? I was on bed rest for this entire week!”

“Exactly! You were put on bed rest!” he yells, “You could have just taken it easy but no, you had to go and put yourself in danger-- put our  _ child _ in danger-- because you’re Clarke Griffin and you know best!”

They haven’t yelled at each other like this in a while, possibly even years. Clarke knows that she’s supposed to be keeping her blood pressure down, but this is it. This is  _ the _ fight that all those other little fights were a prelude too.

“You can’t expect me to live in a bubble, Bellamy!”

“I can damn well expect you to think about your safety and the safety of this child!”

“Oh my god, the baby is fine!” she yells at him, “It’s fine! Nothing is wrong with it, so would you just fucking lay off already!”

“And what about you?” he asks, his voice going deadly calm. “What about you, huh Princess?”

She flinches. “Bellamy I--”

“No, you put yourself in danger too, Clarke,” he says, shaking his head. “I could have lost you too.”

“Bellamy…”

“You’re the most important person in my life Clarke, do you know that?” he asks, sounding exhausted all of a sudden.

She nods slowly. “Yes. Because of the baby.”

“No. Because of you,” he corrects, looking directly at her. “You’re the most important person in my life. Both before the baby and after.”

Her brow furrows. “I don’t--”

“When you told me you were pregnant I was terrified,” he cuts her off. “I didn’t want you to keep it. I’ve seen what happens when a pregnancy goes wrong and god, Clarke, I couldn’t let that happen to you. I couldn’t be the reason that happened to you.”

“Nothing is happening to me,” she murmurs, reaching for his hands. “I’m fine and the baby’s fine.”

“But you don’t know that,” he says, smiling sadly. “Things can change in a minute and I couldn’t-- I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that I’m responsible for your death.”

“Bellamy,” she says while trying and failing to keep the tears at bay. “I’m not gonna die. You didn’t kill me. You gave me something so special. Our kid, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

“I know, I just,” he squeezes his eyes shut, resting his forehead on hers for a second, “I love you, you know that?”

Her mouth suddenly gets dry and she finds herself nodding. “Yeah. Of course. Just like I love you.”

He makes a frustrated sound. “No, Clarke, I meant that  _ I love you _ ,” he says, looking deep in her eyes and oh, it finally dawns on her, feeling like a warm ray of sunshine curling around her shoulders. “I love you and I want to start a family with you and I’m sorry you didn’t have a choice in all of this.”

“Of course I had a choice,” she says with a roll of her very watery eyes. It’s a bit hard for her not to smile. “I chose to sleep with you. I chose to keep this baby. I chose  _ you _ , Bellamy.”

His face softens at that and she can’t help but grip his between both of her hands. “I always thought you knew how I felt about you,” she starts, “After everything-- all we’ve done, all we’ve been through-- no one else could understand it except for you and I thought,” she bites her lip, “I thought you didn’t see me that way.”

He lets out a short wet laugh. “I thought  _ you _ didn’t see  _ me _ that way.”

She laughs too. “Well we’re both idiots then,” she tells him, and he smiles at her.

“I love you,” he says, his voice firm and clear just like the first time and she beams even wider, standing so close that she’s no longer show where she ends and where Bellamy begins.

“I love you too,” she says, curling her fingers behind his neck.

“Gotta say, I kinda feel sorry for this kid,” he says, pushing her hair behind her ear.

“I don’t,” she says, holding onto his collar with a vice grip. “He’s gonna have the best dad in the world.”

“ _ She _ is gonna have the best mom in the world,” he counters, and it makes her laugh, feeling the lightest that she’s ever been in a long time.

Clarke has kissed Bellamy more times than she can count. But there’s something about this kiss, where they’re both grinning into it as she pulls him close, their mouths slotting messily over one another, that makes it her favourite.

* * *

Clarke goes into labour two days after Bellamy spots a daisy poking through the snow.

She’s just a few days early but that doesn’t really matter.

She started feeling sort of crampy last night before they went to bed but chalked it up to gas. Even when it persisted into the morning, not leaving her as she eats breakfast and has her morning tea, she still tells Bellamy that it’s gas, probably Braxton-Hicks if so much. He still looked at her with that furrow between his brow, the one he gets when he has a bad feeling, but let her go nonetheless, walking her to medical and kissing her cheek in goodbye.

She’s still supposed to be on bed rest, but she tells him that she much rather lie in a cot in medical than be at home all alone on the edge of their little neighbourhood and he grudgingly acquiesces. The fact that Harper is there to make sure she keeps her ass in one place is what really does it for him.

So she goes and she lies down in a cot, going through patient records and sorting inventory and talking with her staff.

Not even three hours later does her water break, right as she’s in the middle of sorting through the different kind of herbs to use for fevers with Mai and they both just stare at the puddle for a moment.

“I should probably get Bellamy,” says Mai, still a bit gobsmacked and Clarke just barely manages to nod.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea,” she manages to say, “Get Harper too.”

The younger girl nods before speeding off and it’s no more than five minutes later that the other two rush into medical, wide-eyed and frenzied.

Bellamy gets to her first. 

“Clarke!” he says, hands fluttering over her body, not quite touching her, until he finally decides on grasping her hand. “What happened?”

“My water broke,” she says, still sounding a bit dazed and she glances up at him.

Bellamy swallows. “Does that mean--”

She nods. “Yeah. Baby’s coming.”

The next seventeen hours are the most stressful-- and painful-- of her life.

Her labour is slow going and it takes her hours to get fully dilated. She makes Bellamy walk with her around the perimeter of the village, her skin clammy and wet despite the snow that crunched under their feet. Clarke tries not to panic; she has to focus on breathing and getting through the contractions and besides, Bellamy is panicking enough for the two of them.

Finally her contractions starting inching closer and closer together and when they’re about five minutes apart, they set her up in the bed, getting ready for her to push.

“You doing okay love?” he asks, pushing the sweaty strands of hair out of her face so he could drop a rough kiss to her temple.

“I’m about to push a human being out of my vagina,” she snarls. “How do you think I’m doing?”

Bellamy keeps his face close to hers, hiding his grin as he murmurs words of encouragement into her ear, letting her squeeze his hand so hard that his knuckles pop. She doesn’t remember most of it after that, everything lost in a haze of pain and blood and even more pain, but she does remember calling Bellamy some very terrible names and she remembers the feeling of sweet relief when the baby finally started to crown.

“Almost there, Clarke,” he says, wiping at her brow with a rag dipped in cold water. She’s sweaty and flushed, with her eyes rimmed red and her hair a lion’s mane around her head but Bellamy has never seen her look more beautiful than in that moment, reminding him of the myths about the old gods.

He presses another kiss to her head as Harper coaches her through the last of her pushes. “Almost there, love, almost done. It’s almost over. You can do this.”

There’s another blur of pain and a scream that she takes a minute to realise comes from her, and then there’s a second pair of lungs joining her, the sounds of a baby,  _ her _ baby taking its first breaths and crying as loud as they possibly can.

“It’s a girl,” says Harper, beaming at her as she has Bellamy help her cut the umbilical cord

Clarke is full on sobbing now and even Bellamy is crying when she hands them over their daughter after cleaning her up.

She’s a small, pink pudgy thing with a mess of dark hair covering the top of her head and a good pair of lungs on her judging from how loud she’s crying.

“My baby, hi baby,” says Clarke, holding her to her chest with shaky arms. She looks up at Bellamy who seems to be bursting with pride as he watches them, his girls, and she grins. “Bell. Bell look.”

“I know, Clarke, I see,” he says, throwing an arm around her shoulder as he carefully traces a finger over the downy skin of her cheek. The baby’s head is so tiny that he could hold it in just one hand. “Look at her. She’s perfect.”

“We made this Bellamy,” she says, looking up at him with watery eyes and she can’t help it, she has to pull him down and kiss him, half delirious from pain and the flurry of emotions that are floating through her.

He mutters a quick  _ I love you _ against the crown of her head and she does the same in the crook of his neck.

They have a steady stream of guests over the next few days and Clarke is more than happy when she’s allowed to go home after the third one, to take their daughter home with them.

She loves their friends but she loves this more.

Sitting in comfortable silence with Bellamy, and now their kid, the one that’s half him and half her.

They name her Julia, after a song his mother used to sing to get him to sleep when he was younger, the same song Bellamy now sings to their daughter as he rocks her to sleep at night in the rocking chair he made.

“I love you,” he tells her when he crawls into bed after putting Julia down in her bassinet for the night.

She finds his hand under the cover and links their fingers together. “I love you too.”

She listens as his breathing gets even, thinking about that day at the beach all those months ago, that day when all she wanted was her family to be safe and happy.

Now, she looks at Bellamy, snoring with his mouth partially open and an arm thrown over his head. He fell asleep clutching at her hand, and she can see Julia too, her little grey eyes shut, pudgy hands closed into fists as she sleeps just two steps away. Eventually Clarke will get up and sneak her into the bed with them, but now she’s content to lie there and listen to the sounds of her two favourite people in this entire world sleep.

She’s happy.


End file.
